Kiichi Miyazawa

As a conservative politician in the postwar mould, Kiichi Miyazawa, who has died aged 87, would no doubt have felt uncomfortable among the current crop of nationalist politicians who dominate Japan's ruling Liberal democratic party (LDP). For Miyazawa was for decades the voice of a mainstream conservatism that has been all but snuffed out by the rise of the populist rightwinger Junichiro Koizumi and Japan's current leader, Shinzo Abe.

As finance minister from 1986 to 1988, Miyazawa presided over the final years of the bubble economy - a time of soaring land and stock prices - but as prime minister from 1991 to 1993 he will forever be associated with Japan's descent into the "lost decade" of economic recession and social angst.

Miyazawa was born into a wealthy, politically active family in Fukuyama, Hiroshima prefecture. His father was an MP and his grandfather a cabinet minister. After graduating from the law department of Tokyo University, he joined the finance ministry in 1942, thereby avoiding military service. He won a seat in the upper house for the first time in 1953 before moving to the more powerful lower house in 1967, going on to fill several cabinet posts, including foreign minister.

Miyazawa was no stranger to scandal, but as a consummate political survivor, he avoided the ignominious fate of many other LDP politicians. In 1988 he was forced to resign as finance minister over a shares-for-favours scandal, but just three years later was appointed prime minister at the advanced age - even by Japanese standards - of 72.

Miyazawa would no doubt disapprove of the diplomatic quagmire in which Japan now finds itself with its Asian neighbours over conservative attempts to rewrite the country's wartime history and strengthen its overseas military role.

A vocal supporter of closer ties with China and other former enemies, he was the first Japanese leader to acknowledge that his country's military had forced Asian women to work in frontline brothels before and during the second world war. In 1992 he formally apologised for the use of "comfort women" during a visit to South Korea, a gesture that is unlikely to be repeated by Abe.

Yet many will remember Miyazawa as the unfortunate dining companion of the first president George Bush, who vomited on his host during a formal dinner in Tokyo in 1992. Miyazawa dealt with the incident with typical good grace, cradling Bush senior's head while Barbara Bush wiped the president's face.

Miyazawa's largely unremarkable premiership ended in August 1993 after it failed to implement anti-corruption legislation, forcing a no-confidence motion. His administration's collapse ushered in the first non-LDP administration in Japan since 1955, although it lasted less than a year.

In 1998 Miyazawa was back in government, this time as finance minister at a time when the world's second-biggest economy was creaking under the weight of bank loans. He embraced the task of resurrecting the banking sector in typically self-effacing style, saying: "I am not sure I will live up to your expectations, but I will do my best." His efforts were deemed a failure, and Japan would have to wait five more years until its banks recovered. Internationally, he won plaudits in 1998 for putting his name to a multi-million dollar bail-out during the Asian economic crisis that began a year earlier.

He retired in 2003 having won 14 consecutive terms as an MP. His quiet retreat marked a changing of the guard in postwar politics, from a generation that grew up with postwar austerity to one that had no personal knowledge of Japan's darkest hour.

Fluent in English, Miyazawa served as an aide to the negotiators who drew up the 1951 San Francisco peace treaty. Indeed, it was his desire to overcome the historical animosity that blighted Japan's relations with its wartime enemies that drove him in the later years of his career. Despite being instrumental in giving Japanese troops a greater role in UN peacekeeping missions in the early 1990s, he was also a staunch supporter of Japan's postwar pacifist constitution.

Despite his slight frame and kindly face, Miyazawa earned an unlikely reputation as a fighter. In 1984, he famously fought off a would-be robber in his Tokyo hotel room, leaving his wounded assailant sprawled on the floor.

Miyazawa is survived by his wife, whom he met while studying in the US, and two children.